Lots of points being made, here are a few of mine:

Certian MFG chose to stay out of F1 because of a cost benifit. Porsche-Audi, VW, Mazda, and others have racing sport programs that my not have the broad exposure of F1, but neither the costs of operations. They chose to go the smaller racing series and still gain marketing exposure.

Other MFG such as Toyota and Honda, because of the amount of sales worldwide, can amortize a $300 million dollar program down to less than $100 per car-truck-vehicle, sold, which they calculate as a managable investment for F1. (Note: This was Jaguar's logic for selling out in 04, They calculated $1500 per car, for $120 million for a mid-field program wasn't worth it). That can put pressure on other manufacturers that may have a high 100's or low 1,000's in a cost per car calculation, (Porsche, Spyker, Lamborgihini) and as Nick Fry indicated, can only handle 1-2yrs of financial comittment before the costs just become unbearable.

With cost-control being a bit of an oxymoron,(Teams with money will spend it..I've heard Steve Matchett elaborate on this and I agree) and the current environment of not allowing customer cars, only the teams that have the F1 infrastructure of manufacturing a car will be in F1. And the only way someone new (VW, Porsche-Audi) will come in, is to take over and existing team. This doesnt allow for expansion of F1 teams, but merely a zero-sum game of contestants.

Based on the impending concorde agreement that will require true constructors, The sport may be forced to adopt a 3 car team, fielding 21-24 cars depending on the mix of manufacturers involved. In the past, I had been a proponet of having customer cars with a customer team being a joint venture with an existing MFG to assist in amortization of costs, and allowing up to 12 competeing teams on a grid. But the problem with this is that no factory team will allow a customer team to out perform them. Even with the sporting regulations modified to limit development during an ongoing season, The factory would simply make the following years customer car uncompetitive.

Given the nature of the sports recent history, and the financial requirements of operating a F1 team. I feel a 3 car team will be a realisitc vision for 2012 and beyond.

With cost-control being a bit of an oxymoron,(Teams with money will spend it..I've heard Steve Matchett elaborate on this and I agree) and the current environment of not allowing customer cars, only the teams that have the F1 infrastructure of manufacturing a car will be in F1. And the only way someone new (VW, Porsche-Audi) will come in, is to take over and existing team. This doesnt allow for expansion of F1 teams, but merely a zero-sum game of contestants.

Sounds pretty ominous.

I agree with Hairy Scotsman. Formula One is supposed to be a sport, not some sort of half-billion dollar advertising venue. Fans who go to races or watch on television want to see a race, not a parade, an engineering exercise or a two-hour advertising forum. Especially when the commercials the television network runs are more interesting. God forbid, "the greatest racing in the world" should turn into a bad Super Bowl, where half the audience tunes in specifically to see the commercials.

For those of you who haven't studied Formula One history, this situation has happened before. In the late 1950s, the big Italian factory teams -- Masseratti and, yes, Ferrari -- were the class of the field. No one else was close; sometimes, there would be 15 to 30 seconds between the fastest and slowest qualifiers.

While the budgets were smaller, the expenses were still enough to drive most of the smaller, independant and privateer teams out of the sport. The FIA's response to this was, essentially, to end Formula One as the World Driver's Championship. The bigger 2.5 litre cars were abandoned in favour of 1.5 litre Formula Two cars, or something very similiar. It was during this era when independant teams like BRM and Lotus established themselves, and privateers like Rob Walker won the occasional race. Stirling Moss's win over the Ferraris at Monaco in 1961, for example, is a classic "David Beats Goliath" contest.

The 1.5 litre formula also shook things up sufficiently to set the stage for the early days of the three litre formula, which was one of the technically most interesting eras in Formula One. Anybody could run anything, and you never knew who was going to come out with what. A given race saw space frame Brabhams with stock-block Repco engines taking on monocoque Lotus with Climax, and later Cosworth V-8s, Ferrari and Cooper-Masseratti V-12s and even BRM's infamous H-16. Until the Cosworth DFV became universally available, the racing was pretty good. Championships were decided on consistancy, no on who won all the races.

Today, we have something similar. Two teams -- Ferrari and Renault or Ferrari and McLaren -- dominate the field. Occasionally, someone else will win, but that is a fluke. Budgets are incredibly huge -- $200 million to $450 or $500 million. Maybe more; the teams don't tell all on anything. The field is shrinking as the independant teams like Super Aguri, Red Bull and others leave the sport because they can't match the other teams' spending. And nobody is coming in to replace them.

Sooner or later, something has to give. If the present trend of brutal costs and limited competition keeps up, we will have maybe four teams in the sport: Ferrari, McLaren, maybe Renault, maybe Williams, maybe BMW. Honda and Toyota will either shape up or decide to keep themselves solvent by not wasting half a billion dollars a year to finish mid-pack or worse. Do we really want to see four or eight car fields, with only two potential winners? Indy 2005 may be a foreshadowing of a "typical Grand Prix," if something is not done.

A spending cap, monitored closely -- if not administered -- by the FIA might help. So would substituting cheaper materials and cutting back on the non-stop research and development budgets that cost hundreds of millions of dollars and pay back almost nothing. Or the FIA could just elevate A1GP to "World Championship" status and start over. But you can't go on like this forever.

hairy_scotsman - 16 May 2008 11:29 AM

With cost-control being a bit of an oxymoron,(Teams with money will spend it..I've heard Steve Matchett elaborate on this and I agree) and the current environment of not allowing customer cars, only the teams that have the F1 infrastructure of manufacturing a car will be in F1. And the only way someone new (VW, Porsche-Audi) will come in, is to take over and existing team. This doesnt allow for expansion of F1 teams, but merely a zero-sum game of contestants.

Sounds pretty ominous.

Think about it, There are only 7-9 facilities worldwide that are capabile of manufacturing a F1 car. Some of those are dependent on having engines supplied to them. And a new team having to invest all that money into a infrastructure, even if they came out with a well performing car, would not recoup those costs for 10yrs or more. Its just to expensive to startup like that, therefore, the only realisitc way to get in is to take over an existing facility. Thus, limiting the number of teams..unless the demand for such facilities reaches a point where building a new facility can be a viable alternative to the "market rate" for an existing one....

Keeptobaccoinf1 - 16 May 2008 11:44 AM

hairy_scotsman - 16 May 2008 11:29 AM

With cost-control being a bit of an oxymoron,(Teams with money will spend it..I've heard Steve Matchett elaborate on this and I agree) and the current environment of not allowing customer cars, only the teams that have the F1 infrastructure of manufacturing a car will be in F1. And the only way someone new (VW, Porsche-Audi) will come in, is to take over and existing team. This doesnt allow for expansion of F1 teams, but merely a zero-sum game of contestants.

Sounds pretty ominous.

Think about it, There are only 7-9 facilities worldwide that are capabile of manufacturing a F1 car. Some of those are dependent on having engines supplied to them. And a new team having to invest all that money into a infrastructure, even if they came out with a well performing car, would not recoup those costs for 10yrs or more. Its just to expensive to startup like that, therefore, the only realisitc way to get in is to take over an existing facility. Thus, limiting the number of teams..unless the demand for such facilities reaches a point where building a new facility can be a viable alternative to the "market rate" for an existing one....

Yes. Sounds very ominous. Seriously.

Sounds to me like the clock is ticking for the series.

Is that an overreaction?

I realize that it's possible that all of these facilities could keep changing hands and continue running into the future...but what are the odds?

Toyota boss says F1 in very good shape

...<snip>....Howett also reckons the sport is very strong financially despite Super Aguri's demise.

"Obviously the loss of Super Aguri was a shame but in general Formula One is commercially very strong; we have some of the biggest corporations in the world involved and the global reach is greater than all other sporting events, with the exception of quadrennial events such as World Cup football and the Olympics," he added.

"Formula One may not be perfect, it certainly can be improved, but it has plenty of reasons to be positive. Perhaps more focus should be placed on this."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/67466

When one looks at CART and Champ Car, in the days when they had Mercedes, Honda, Toyota, Ford all battling each other as suppliers to privateers, it was vibrant. When they went down to the single manufacturer Ford engines, it just was a symptom of a declining series.


I enjoyed the days when manufacturers supplied engines to privateers in F1. It was a boutique specialist series with Ferrari really being the sole "factory" team having their own complete chassis, aero, and engine.

Although nostalgic, I don't think we'll ever go back to that Golden era and Pandora's Box has been opened with the horse having left the barn.

Manufacturer teams with their own complete cars have become the majority rather than the rare instance.

I don't know what "partnerships" can arise between manufacturers and privateers but we see Williams and RBR putting up a good template on how to survive.

The criteria to build your own chassis from scratch is what will scare privateers out in terms of cost development and need for expertise.

You can't just parachute in and hang a shingle and race.

If we are to have privateers, then there has to be a "loophole" or compromise from Williams' and Kolles hard stance on customer cars in that chassis criteria - perhaps there can be a middle ground for that ?

hairy_scotsman - 16 May 2008 11:49 AM

Keeptobaccoinf1 - 16 May 2008 11:44 AM

hairy_scotsman - 16 May 2008 11:29 AM

With cost-control being a bit of an oxymoron,(Teams with money will spend it..I've heard Steve Matchett elaborate on this and I agree) and the current environment of not allowing customer cars, only the teams that have the F1 infrastructure of manufacturing a car will be in F1. And the only way someone new (VW, Porsche-Audi) will come in, is to take over and existing team. This doesnt allow for expansion of F1 teams, but merely a zero-sum game of contestants.

Sounds pretty ominous.

Think about it, There are only 7-9 facilities worldwide that are capabile of manufacturing a F1 car. Some of those are dependent on having engines supplied to them. And a new team having to invest all that money into a infrastructure, even if they came out with a well performing car, would not recoup those costs for 10yrs or more. Its just to expensive to startup like that, therefore, the only realisitc way to get in is to take over an existing facility. Thus, limiting the number of teams..unless the demand for such facilities reaches a point where building a new facility can be a viable alternative to the "market rate" for an existing one....

Yes. Sounds very ominous. Seriously.

Sounds to me like the clock is ticking for the series.

Is that an overreaction?

I realize that it's possible that all of these facilities could keep changing hands and continue running into the future...but what are the odds?

Excellent post -- How long can this high-wire act continue at these prices? We've weathered (for now..) threats from Carlos Ghosen that Renault may pull out of F1, if costs cannot be justified (these very threats may have been partially responsible for Alonso scurrying off to Mclaren.) Recent threats to Toyota F1 from the motherland Factory. Once agin.. how long can F1 continue this high wire act; When American Racing's recent past has shown that the manufacterer's can be fickle. Not only CART but Nascar. This is the reason that Nascar has the COT car; to guard against the exodus of the manufacterer's --(happened to Nascar once already) When the Carmakers either get 'bored' or a racing series no longer serves their interest or the interest of the latest CEO. In my opinon. The best sport has always been modeled not after 'Battle of the Titans '-- although interesting -- even more intersting is The model of David vs. Goliath.

Go RedBull/ STR!

Man, does Nick Fry enjoy rubbing salt in wounds or what? Just my opinion --But this guy didn't waste any time in revealing his true agenda? Did he? And I must say, (at least it is my opionion once again)-- that these recent comments make it appear as if he was likely complicite in the demise of Super Aguri. (at least being in accord with their financial orphanage, and subsequent whitering on the vine).
Doesn't sound as if he were very sympathetic to their plight at all, now does it?

Mach5m - 17 May 2008 12:40 AM

Man, does Nick Fry enjoy rubbing salt in wounds or what? Just my opinion --But this guy didn't waste any time in revealing his true agenda? Did he? And I must say, (at least it is my opionion once again)-- that these recent comments make it appear as if he was likely complicite in the demise of Super Aguri. (at least being in accord with their financial orphanage, and subsequent whitering on the vine).
Doesn't sound as if he were very sympathetic to their plight at all, now does it?

Yea he appears goofy but he's really coming of as a snake within the press.